One of the best books published for some time on
the problems of childhood is a collection of essays by Dr. Homer Lane, Talks to Parents and Teachers (Allen and Unwin, 5s.). Dr. Lane had a quite unusual. experience of living with children and entering into their minds : his observation was made all the sharper because he took it for granted that every child has an interior life as full, vivid, and important as an adult's. Much educational work is carried on as if children were less important and less thoroughly alive than adults ; as if their inability to hit back gave us some title -to constrain them and impose our wills on them, whether they -Eke it or not. It was this habit of mind that Dr. Homer Lane fought ; and his work was more valuable for society than we recognize. Unfortunately, he was too much of an individualist and an eclectic in his technique, taking his methods where he found them, making few acknowledgments and no links with other workers in the same field. He suffered from this limitation, and his work suffered ; but this collection of essays shows the keenness of his understanding and the freshness of his spirit. Every parent and teacher could learn much from his ". talks "—above all, a sympathy, wonder, and comradeship in dealing with children, and a recognition of responsibility for their delinquencies.
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